Townhall
Modest Snooping?
Debra J. Saunders
Jun 09, 2013 

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- "Nobody's listening to your phone calls," President Obama proclaimed at a Friday event that was supposed to be about California's implementation of the Affordable Care Act. 

But that morning, the New York Times had reported that surveillance programs begun under President George W. Bush had been clearly "embraced and even expanded under the Obama administration." The Guardian had reported that the federal government directed Verizon to provide phone logs on a daily basis, not only of calls between the United States and abroad, but also calls "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls." 

Accordingly, Times reporter Jackie Calmes asked the president if he could assure the American people that the government doesn't keep "some massive secret database of all their personal online information and activities." 

"You can't have 100 percent security and also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," the president replied. "We're going to have to make some choices as a society." 

In defense of the phone surveillance program, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, argued, "It's called protecting America." The program, wrote Slate's Will Saleton, "isn't Orwellian. It's limited, and it's controlled by checks and balances." 

Most important: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers maintains that the program helped thwart a significant terrorist attack within the United States in the last few years. 

Does that mean the government hasn't gone overboard? Obama suggested that the public can trust the government because the executive branch acts under the oversight of Congress and with the approval of federal judges. 

Under that arrangement, however, the Department of Justice secretly subpoenaed phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors -- the news of which no doubt chilled any would-be whistle-blowers left in Washington… 

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